hey contain two or three hundred queer old pictures, by old
Swiss masters--old boss sign-painters, who flourished before the
decadence of art.

The lake is alive with fishes, plainly visible to the eye, for the water
is very clear. The parapets in front of the hotels were usually fringed
with fishers of all ages. One day I thought I would stop and see a
fish caught. The result brought back to my mind, very forcibly, a
circumstance which I had not thought of before for twelve years. This
one:

THE MAN WHO PUT UP AT GADSBY'S

When my odd friend Riley and I were newspaper correspondents in
Washington, in the winter of '67, we were coming down Pennsylvania
Avenue one night, near midnight, in a driving storm of snow, when the
flash of a street-lamp fell upon a man who was eagerly tearing along in
the opposite direction. "This is lucky! You are Mr. Riley, ain't you?"

Riley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate person in the
republic. He stopped, looked his man over from head to foot, and finally
said:

"I am Mr. Riley. Did you happen to be looking for me?"

"That's just what I was doing," said the man, joyously, "and it's the
biggest luck in the world that I've found you. My name is Lykins. I'm
one of the teachers of the high school--San Francisco. As soon as I
heard the San Francisco postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind to
get it--and here I am."

"Yes," said Riley, slowly, "as you have remarked ... Mr. Lykins ... here
you are. And have you got it?"

"Well, not exactly GOT it, but the next thing to it. I've brought a
petition, signed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and all
the teachers, and by more than two hundred other people. Now I want you,
if you'll be so good, to go around with me to the Pacific delegation,
for I want to rush this thing through and get along home."

"If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we visit the
delegation tonight," said Riley, in a voice which had nothing mocking in
it--to an unaccustomed ear.

"Oh, tonight, by all means! I haven't got any time to fool around. I
want their promise before I go to bed--I ain't the talking kind, I'm the
DOING kind!"

"Yes ... you've come to the right place for that. When did you arrive?"

"Just an hour ago."

"When are you intending to leave?"

"For New York tomorrow evening--for San Francisco next morning."

"Just so.... What are you going to do tomorrow?"

"DO! Why, I've got to go to the Preside